John W. Troutman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627922
- eISBN:
- 9781469627946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627922.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's ...
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Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.Less
Since the nineteenth century, the distinct tones of kika kila, the Hawaiian steel guitar, have defined the island sound. Here historian and steel guitarist John W. Troutman offers the instrument's definitive history, from its discovery by a young Hawaiian royalist named Joseph Kekuku to its revolutionary influence on American and world music. During the early twentieth century, Hawaiian musicians traveled the globe, from tent shows in the Mississippi Delta, where they shaped the new sounds of country and the blues, to regal theaters and vaudeville stages in New York, Berlin, Kolkata, and beyond. In the process, Hawaiian guitarists recast the role of the guitar in modern life. But as Troutman explains, by the 1970s the instrument's embrace and adoption overseas also worked to challenge its cultural legitimacy in the eyes of a new generation of Hawaiian musicians. As a consequence, the indigenous instrument nearly disappeared in its homeland. Using rich musical and historical sources, including interviews with musicians and their descendants, Troutman provides the complete story of how this Native Hawaiian instrument transformed not only American music but the sounds of modern music throughout the world.
David Brackett
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520248717
- eISBN:
- 9780520965317
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520248717.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Chapter two begins around 1900 with a discussion of the United States music industry in the early days of sound recording, which is examined for its impact on the categorization of popular music, and ...
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Chapter two begins around 1900 with a discussion of the United States music industry in the early days of sound recording, which is examined for its impact on the categorization of popular music, and the new possibilities afforded for the circulation of genre-identity relations. The category of “foreign music” emerges in response first to an interest in music of faraway places facilitated by sound recording, and then to the discovery of marketing possibilities to recent European immigrants. The subcategories of Hawaiian and Jewish music are analyzed in more detail to show how foreign music moved from an emphasis on imaginary to homologous music-identity relations by the 1920s. The category of foreign music established a model for how the music industry could be structured around the concept of homological relations (that is, a direct one-to-one correspondence) between categories of music and categories of people.Less
Chapter two begins around 1900 with a discussion of the United States music industry in the early days of sound recording, which is examined for its impact on the categorization of popular music, and the new possibilities afforded for the circulation of genre-identity relations. The category of “foreign music” emerges in response first to an interest in music of faraway places facilitated by sound recording, and then to the discovery of marketing possibilities to recent European immigrants. The subcategories of Hawaiian and Jewish music are analyzed in more detail to show how foreign music moved from an emphasis on imaginary to homologous music-identity relations by the 1920s. The category of foreign music established a model for how the music industry could be structured around the concept of homological relations (that is, a direct one-to-one correspondence) between categories of music and categories of people.
